


By the Fire in the Library

by Isua



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Hanging Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29221395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isua/pseuds/Isua
Summary: Remus and Tonks in the Grimmauld Place library, just talking and fortunetelling and goofing around a bit, a few weeks after they met.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	By the Fire in the Library

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing.  
> Apparently I like writing about them hanging out and talking. :)   
> Trans rights are human rights.

Remus was sitting in the library, leafing through a book, sipping some firewhiskey, and generally feeling vaguely fuzzy-minded and quietly melancholy, when the newest member of the Order wandered in. They’d chatted a few times over dinners, and she had taken to bringing over treats for Buckbeak in the last two weeks, so he supposed he shouldn’t mind the invasion and should instead be glad for the company. He smiled, raised his glass in her direction, and nodded. She put a cup of tea down on the floor, collapsed at the end of the couch, turned, and heaved her legs over the arm so that her feet were dangling over the side towards the fire.

“Wotcher, Remus, how are you?” she asked, with a big outrush of breath as she flopped.

“All right, Nymphadora, how are you?”

“Did I not already tell you not to call me that? I’m losing my touch, all these late nights and early mornings.”

“I believe you threatened to have Ginny develop an entirely new hex, just for me.”

“Okay, good, suitably dire. So, how are you?”

He took a sip, stopped, took another sip, and muttered, “Oh, fine, fine.”

She turned her head towards him on the couch pillow, crushing some pink spikes as others popped back up. “That was very convincing. You’re definitely fine. What is it, is it the war? Death eaters abounding? Dumbledore asking you to do something awful?”

He smiled ruefully. “No, entirely self-inflicted. A Weasley left this schoolbook in here, and I picked it up and started reading, to torture myself with. Did you know I used to be a teacher at Hogwarts?”

“Yes, Hermione may have mentioned it. Harry too. The twins. And Ginny, that kid was clearly _inspired_ , the amount of work she puts into her hexes. Wish I could have had you, been a sight better than the parade of halfwits we did have. First half of my Auror training was just undoing the educational damage. Ron hasn’t told me how great you were yet, but I think that’s because I tripped into his lap the other day and he hasn’t regained the power of speech in my presence. It’s hard to be a teenager, poor kid.”

He smiled again, somewhat less ruefully. “Yes, I can imagine that would be a powerful experience.”

“Maybe I should just fall on anybody who calls me that name, that would silence you all.”

“Or encourage us, perhaps.”

“Right, right.” She wiggled and settled herself deeper into the couch cushions, and began drawing designs in the air absentmindedly with her wand.

“So do you hate that name because you think it doesn’t suit you?”

“Nah, just hate it.”

“Because it’s got a nice rhythm, quite unusual, decent nickname in ‘Dora;’ it seems like an attractive-enough name. Very fluid, creates a nice contrast with ‘Tonks’.”

“People who call me Dora: my dad. People who call me Nympho: 87% of Hogwarts students.”

“Ah, I see, that is a good reason. I hope the ratio has improved since graduation.”

“That’s not the reason. Hated it before. I just hate it.”

“But it’s—”

“Remus, why didn’t you eat Molly’s cabbage rolls this evening?”

“I don’t like cabbage.”

“You don’t like cabbage because of an upsetting childhood memory?”

“No, I—”

“You don’t like cabbage because it reminds you of unpleasant associations with Durmstrang?”

“No, I—”

“You don’t like cabbage because your wolfbelly can’t digest it properly and you end up with sodding huge megapowered farts?”

“Let me finish! No, I just do not like it. I don’t like the taste.”

“Ah, I see, that is a good reason.”

“Okay, okay, I see too.”

She waved her feet in the air a bit, clonked her boots together, and let them fall again. “So tell me what it is you’re torturing yourself with. Read to me. I mean, please read to me.”

“It’s arithmancy, I don’t know which Weasley this belongs to and can’t imagine any of them liking it. Suitably dire. I’ll put you to sleep in an instant.”

“And would that be so bad?” She pulled her wand out, whispered to it a moment, and let it fall between her and the cushions, then picked up her head and wedged a corner of a pillow underneath. “There, I’ve an alarm set. I’ll be up for the morning Ministry shift.”

“Surely you don’t want to fall asleep on that couch.”

“Why not? I wear robes, they won’t know I’m in the same clothes as yesterday, and even if they did I could just tell them I spent the night at a relative’s house. Or in the company of a gentleman. I won’t even be lying. So it’ll be fine. I can tell the future, I know, no arithmancy needed. Was Trelawny teaching when you were there? I loved her class, it was a blast.” She sat up a little, reached down for the mug on the floor, and gulped down the rest of her tea. “I never got the hang of the crystal ball really, but I did like tea leaves. Telling the future from a wee mess, that I can get behind.”

“Oh? What do your tea leaves say?”

“That I’m going to fall asleep listening to a pleasant baritone reading arithmancy.”

“A, that’s cheating, b, thank you for flattering my voice, and c, that’s cheating.”

“All right, all right. Rrrmmmmphhfff.” She struggled a bit to roll half over to get a better look into the mug. “Okay. They’re a right mess, first off, that seems accurate enough. There’s a big leaf piece by itself in the middle. That’s me, by myself, surrounded by a Vortex of DOOOOOOOM.”

She stopped, waited for a reaction, got none, and looked some more. “That is me, though. Bigger than the other bits, because of course I’m self-obsessed. There’s a line of little bits over by the handle, those, those, those mean a path. Leading either towards or away from a mess. What was the way to tell? What what what what it was the veins, which way the veins on the leaf were pointing, you had to have Mad-Eye’s eye to even tell that, these leaves are too small to tell the veins. Remind me to buy less well-muddled tea leaves. So I can’t tell.”

“What does the mess mean?”

“I said, it was a vortex of DOOOOOOM.”

“Yes, so, will you be dragged down into the maelstrom, or drag others down?”

“Not super clear. Some of the leaf bits that are pointy are pointing in, some are pointing out. So some of both, I imagine. I always did fancy being a sea hag, that’ll be fun.”

“Oh yes, it’s quite fun to be a dark creature.”

“Hush, you, stop that. There’s a group of leaves with pointy bits on the other side, that are all pointing towards _you_ , you know. Which means you’ll be important in this. Maybe I’ll be a sea hag and you’ll be a werewolf and together we’ll make some sort of weird amphibious babies. What would they be? Selkies?”

“It probably means we’ll have a mission together next week. Did you look at the schedule in the kitchen? We’re staking out the Goyle house next Thursday. Do you want to meet here and eat whatever Molly’s left, or meet there?”

“Why exactly is Molly responsible for feeding the entire Order? Besides that she likes it, I mean. Bet that she’d like someone else to step up occasionally so that she can protest that it’s no trouble, none at all, perish the thought, but oh thank you very much. Anyway, I’ll meet you here. I’ll bring sushi. It’s adorable that there’s a schedule in the kitchen. It’s like we’re a Witch Scout troop, we know who’s making pancakes and who’s sweeping the ashes each week to make sure the campsite’s sparkling clean. What kind of sushi do you want? What kind does Molly want?”

“I don’t need any—”

“I don’t recall asking what sushi you needed, Remus. My tea leaves are pointing at you, you’re clearly important. I want to make sure you’ve got your brain food. Unagi? Tekka maki? Selkie?”

“Unagi please, I like the sauce. Selkie sushi does have a ring to it.”

“Maybe it’s like salmon skin sushi, it’s only the selkie skin that goes on the rice. Mad-Eye and I had to deal with a cove full of selkies last year, it was my final project, the write-up on the getting-riddance of them.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I swam out naked to them and told them I wanted to set up a pen-pal project for them with the jackalopes in America.”

“I doubt that, Nymphadora.”

“Do not call me that, that is the last warning. Okay, _Mad-Eye_ swam out to them naked.”

“That I believe would empty a cove.”

“Their disgust at the merest mention of pen-pals, though. It wounded me. My whole scheme was so cheerful.”

“Indeed.”

“Also, a several cratefuls of sardines, and five or six enormous barrier charms to seal the cove.”

“Indeed.”

“Get it? _Seal_ the cove?”

“Wouldn’t they just go to the next cove over?” he asked, completely ignoring her, which was probably for the best.

“Not with Mad-Eye in the nip over there. Last I heard they were headed for Spitzbergen.” She kicked her feet again, clomped the boots together a few times, and let them fall again over the couch arm. “And I conjured a wee little tsunami, but I don’t like to brag.”

“Indeed.”

“They’re not just wind, you know, you have to drop the whole seafloor down. I was pretty chuffed about that one.”

“You didn’t charm the water?”

“Easier to charm a bit of rocks to move than a ton of water. Charm the rocks and the water does the rest itself.”

“Ah.”

“I put barrier charms to block people from the cove too, I was very careful.”

“Pleasant of you to do that.”

“I thought so.”

They settled back into silence for a bit, and then he picked up the book again. He flipped, chose a page at random, and started to read to her. “’The epicycle of the second locus can be described by the following equation. Blah blah blah, this allows the calculation of the future annual function by the Scrowling–Beetleby method, described further in chapter eight.’ This should put us both to sleep within a page, I had better finish my drink first. Shame to waste it.”

“What was the blah blah blah?”

“An equation, I didn’t feel like trying to read out all the variables with teeny letters after them.”

“But didn’t your professor impress upon you the absolute supremacy of the equations? Surely of all things in Arithmancy, an equation should never be blah blahed.” She smiled overly smugly for someone who was making someone else read to her, really.

“Very well then.” He thought for a moment, and remembered when he’d spent a few weeks living in the basement of a muggle church with a choir that sang Gregorian chants. He began to chant the equation, going up a note or two when he hit an x-squared and down a note for the subscripts. Lord, he did not miss this class. Puzzles, he’d liked; numbers, he had not. Numbers were for counting the days till the moon; he’d never needed arithmancy to tell his future. He flipped the page, found the next equation, began to sing it.

She waited till he’d sung a few more. “I think I’d have learned much more if I’d had you to sing me the homework.” She propped herself up on an elbow and looked at him. “That was not what I was expecting. I love when people surprise me.” She gave him a huge grin. “What’s your favorite song, Remus? Aside from elliptical epicycles.”

“Oh, Celestina of course, what else in this house?”

She snickered, looked at him again, and started to sing quietly. “Fill My Goblet With Your Starlight Potion” was not a particularly subtle song, but it did have a nice lilt to it, and she dialed down the swoopiness considerably compared to the radio version. He joined in after a moment, and they made it to the end of the second verse before starting to giggle ridiculously.

“You sang in the Hogwarts choir, didn’t you?” he asked once he’d gotten control of himself.

“Yup, alto section, how’d you know?”

“You didn’t scoop up to a single note. Clearly threatened into submission when young by a maniacal choir teacher. Celestina scoops up to everything.”

“She does, doesn’t she? I wasn’t great, I mostly fidgeted, and fell off the back risers once in the middle of a concert. No one noticed, though, not even my mum, shows you how much the alto section matters.”

“Baritones usually only got two notes. Bum bum _BUM_ bum.”

“Altos were mostly one note. Da da da da da da daaaaaaa.”

“True. Composers, alas.”

“But when we sing scoopy trash we get to sing every note, usually all within one measure. Cheers to us!”

“So we do.” He sang through the last verse, this time as melodramatically as he could. He was going to wake up the house, but that could wait, there was more firewhiskey to put everyone back to sleep, surely. She fumbled for her wand, lit the end, and waved it in the air as he came to the overemotional wobble-filled mess of the last line. Then she clapped, grinned, raised her head, was about to say something, and sneezed instead. Then she yawned.

“Remus, I like you. You can sing to me any time. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Well, that will make our stakeouts easier. You can sing to me too, to pass the time in between curses and fleeing.”

They smiled sleepily at each other, and both laid their heads back to doze off finally, the fire crackling softly in the background.


End file.
